“Well look at that, he was returned in one piece! I should have put money on that.” Verity casually glanced over her shoulder as yet another a bounty hunter returned with the thief in tow. She couldn’t help but smile as the man oh-so-kindly tended to the thief’s wound, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was garnering no small amount of stares from the remaining patrons. The ol’ man who’d lost his book would undoubtedly be making his way over to hand out the reward and breathe a sigh of relief.

Except, where were the rest of the bounty hunters? There were still gunshots echoing from the street, but the hoopla and bullet pangs were drifting further away—fast. Could it be that they’d all turned on each other? It wouldn’t surprise her if an accidental injury or two had turned personal. She couldn’t help it—her gaze flicked to the sheriff, wondering how the grizzled wolf felt about cleaning [i]this[/i] mess up. Then she smiled, appreciating the catharsis of someone else’s trouble as she turned back to the barkeep and took a sip of her drink. The dark, rich bubbles of fruit and sun-ripened hops just about eliminated all traces of the struggle from her mind.

Until the barkeep had to give his two cents. 

“Don’t look like th’ fella has th’ book. I reckon tha’s why he’s still alive, th’ varmint.” The barkeep shook his head, picking up a broom from behind the counter to start cleaning up the broken glass left in the wake of his patrons. His smile was missing a few teeth as he grinned at the old adventurer. “I’m holdin’ yeh responsible for this, yeh know. I ‘spect some payment for tearin’ a decent place up if yeh ken throw coin at them beasts.”

Verity smirked, turning to face the old man as well. “That was an interesting price, by the way. 150 gold  for a book—250 for a girl’s dignity, though that’s beside the point—but I think you may have sold the poor dears short. If that was the [i]genuine[/i] article, [i]the[/i] single, original, personal diary of Alexander Jolstein, it’s worth several times that amount. But then again, it couldn’t be the real thing, right? No one would be stupid enough to grandstand the genuine article in front of a bunch of bounty hunters. So. Were you trying to expose, or better yet, kill someone?”

[@Senera2000] [@Lord of Evil]